A Nouwen Network is a ‘grassroots’ nonprofit outreach and receives no financial support from any organization. All activities are entirely voluntary.

The material presented is assembled in good faith. Links to other websites are inserted for convenience

NOTHING CONTAINED ON THE WEBSITE IS INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSIDERED, MEDICAL ADVICE OR TO SERVE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN OR OTHER QUALIFIED HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.

“Jesus, we must remember, spent most of his earthly life in what we today call a blue-collar job. He did not wait until his baptism in the Jordan to discover God. Far from it! Jesus validated the reality of God in the carpentry shop over and over before speaking of the reality of God in his ministry as a rabbi.

…Our vocation is an asset to prayer because it becomes prayer. It is prayer in action. The artist, the novelist, the surgeon, the plumber, the secretary, the lawyer, the homemaker, the farmer, the teacher – all are praying by offering their work up to God.

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do,” says Paul, “do everything for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31) .”

“… We are also Praying the Ordinary when we engage in what Jean-Nicholas Grou calls ‘the prayer of action’. ‘Every action performed in the sight of God because it is the will of God, and in the manner that God wills, is a prayer and indeed a better prayer than could be made in words at such times.’

…"Each activity of daily life in which we stretch ourselves on behalf of others is a prayer of action — the times when we scrimp and save in order to get the children something special; the times when we share our car with others on rainy mornings, leaving early to get them to work on time; the times when we keep up correspondence with friends or answer one last telephone call when we are dead tired at night. These times and many more like them are lived prayer. Ignatius of Loyola notes, 'Everything that one turns in the direction of God is prayer.' . .